Something about this Fellowship chapter has had me captivated to the point where I’ve not been able to let it go by so easily.
The Lord has been showing me that if we don’t have our “relationship” in order with Him, we will not be able to be successful in anything else, let alone fellowship with each other.
When I say “relationship” there are two parts:
1. The most obvious part being the beginning of our eternal relationship with God, having been saved, Born Again, brought into the family of God through grace, by faith in Jesus Christ, and His redemptive work of God punishing Him in our place as He hung and died on the Cross, and all that goes with that; and
2. Our on-going fellowship with Him.
This second part, fellowship, is the part I’m most interested in right now, since I’m going on an assumption that we wouldn’t even be willing to meet together without the first part, above. And more importantly, is where we are either growing closer to the Lord Jesus Christ on a daily basis, or the world is drawing us away from that growth.
I see only these two options—I don’t see any “middle ground”.
So I would like to camp out here for a while and allow what we call this group, to sink in--Men’s Discipleship & Prayer.
We’re not really breaking from the book, but I would like us to dig deeper into the concept of this “way of fellowship” and really start to evaluate ourselves and reflect on what true discipleship looks like: First, with respect to being a disciple of Jesus Christ; and second, what it looks like to “make disciples” of others. The second part is broken up into two parts again:
1. Going into all the world and making disciples; and
2. Continuing to disciple those who are already followers of Jesus Christ to grow in their learning and following our Master, Jesus Christ.
As we consider “discipling others”, we should remember that we’re teaching them to follow the True Master, Jesus Christ. That happens to work best when we, ourselves, are true disciples of the Lord Jesus!
So please, men, help me to dig in—do your own studies of the way of discipleship as our Lord Jesus defines it, and bring it to the table as we break "breakfast bread" together!
I can't do this alone, men!
The Lord has been showing me that if we don’t have our “relationship” in order with Him, we will not be able to be successful in anything else, let alone fellowship with each other.
When I say “relationship” there are two parts:
1. The most obvious part being the beginning of our eternal relationship with God, having been saved, Born Again, brought into the family of God through grace, by faith in Jesus Christ, and His redemptive work of God punishing Him in our place as He hung and died on the Cross, and all that goes with that; and
2. Our on-going fellowship with Him.
This second part, fellowship, is the part I’m most interested in right now, since I’m going on an assumption that we wouldn’t even be willing to meet together without the first part, above. And more importantly, is where we are either growing closer to the Lord Jesus Christ on a daily basis, or the world is drawing us away from that growth.
I see only these two options—I don’t see any “middle ground”.
So I would like to camp out here for a while and allow what we call this group, to sink in--Men’s Discipleship & Prayer.
We’re not really breaking from the book, but I would like us to dig deeper into the concept of this “way of fellowship” and really start to evaluate ourselves and reflect on what true discipleship looks like: First, with respect to being a disciple of Jesus Christ; and second, what it looks like to “make disciples” of others. The second part is broken up into two parts again:
1. Going into all the world and making disciples; and
2. Continuing to disciple those who are already followers of Jesus Christ to grow in their learning and following our Master, Jesus Christ.
As we consider “discipling others”, we should remember that we’re teaching them to follow the True Master, Jesus Christ. That happens to work best when we, ourselves, are true disciples of the Lord Jesus!
So please, men, help me to dig in—do your own studies of the way of discipleship as our Lord Jesus defines it, and bring it to the table as we break "breakfast bread" together!
I can't do this alone, men!